A week or so ago I participated in The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap. I first heard about this cookie swap early last year, before I had a blog of my own, and it seemed like a lot of fun. I think subconsciously one reason I was motivated to start blogging was just to get a chance to participate in this event.
The basic setup is this: you receive names of three other food bloggers and ship them each one dozen cookies. In return, you get three different shipments of cookies for yourself. Who doesn’t like getting packages in the mail? AND to have them be cookies? Win-Win.
The major requirement of this event was you must try a recipe that’s new to you and blog about it. The recipe does not have to be an original recipe, just one you’ve never tried making before. I found an interesting recipe from Karen’s Cookies, white chocolate sugar cookies! I liked how the white chocolate would play well with a possible snow theme so I gave it a shot.
Ingredients
- 1/2 c. (one stick) unsalted butter, softened
- 1/3 c. granulated sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 2 1/4 c. all-purpose flour
- 6 oz. white chocolate
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a metal mixing bowl over low heat boiling water, melt the white chocolate and set aside.
- In a mixer, cream together butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla extract. Mix until it is all well incorporated.
- Beat in melted white chocolate.
- Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl then add, a cupful at a time, to the mixture until fully incorporated.
- Roll to 1/4 inch thickness and chill for 15 minutes, or until firm, then cut into shapes.
- Bake for 5-7 minutes. Remove from the oven before the first indication of the edges turning brown.
The dough was great to work with, although I had to make sure to quickly roll the dough flat after mixing the ingredients before the chocolate fully set.
Because of the firm chunks of white chocolate, I would recommend a sturdy metal cutter rather than using a plastic one. I handcut a few shapes, which was a bit of a challenge because of the chocolate chunks, but those shapes still ended up decent crisp edges.
As for how to decorate these cookies, I had an idea while roaming through Michael’s (You probably know this isn’t uncommon for me. I’ve mentioned doing this before here). I found a snowman cookie tin that stood out to me. My idea was to do a fun set of cookies that coordinated with this snowman tin and ship the cookies (the tin too) to my bloggers. I bought 3 tins and got home to start on the cookies.
After the batch was complete, I bagged the cookies individually and carefully bundled them up with bubble wrap for shipment.
To Molly, Rachael, and Stephanie, I hope these cookies reached you safely intact and I hope you enjoyed this new recipe. Happy Holidays!!
